Using hand signals, Kwan and Poole readied behind the corner of an intersection, then tossed a pair of sparkle grenades around the corner. These grenades blew nearly silently, filling the air of the corridor with sensor-blinding chaff and intensely glowing particles to confuse thermal and infrared sensors. Kwan took the floor while Poole flipped up and engaged her boots on the ceiling, running easily upside down. Adams tensed just behind the corner, ready to provide fire support although she was not supposed to risk direct combat. So she was almost taken by surprise as Kwan rocketed back along the corridor, bounced off the opposite wall, and tried to stand, firing his rifle the whole time. Then a string of bullets from a combot stitched across his armored chest and he was flung backward. A hail of explosive-tipped rounds tore his right arm off in mid-bicep; the armored arm flew through the air and hit Adams squarely in the chin, knocking her backwards. Out of the corner of her dazed vision, she saw Poole come dashing around the corner, now back on the floor and limping badly.
Poole tossed her rifle to Adams and dashed back into the corridor to haul Kwan back to relative safety by one leg. “That could have gone better,” the Ranger muttered to herself. “Adams, you injured?”
“No, ma’am,” Adams was back on her feet, still seeing spots at the edge of her vision. “That doesn’t look good,” she pointed to dents and gouges in the right leg of Poole’s armored suit.
“It’s fine,” the Ranger replied, examining Kwan’s condition. “Kwan?”
“Still here,” the Chinese special forces soldier reported, struggling to get back to his feet.
“Sit down,” Poole ordered. “You lost an arm.”
Kwan seemed to notice for the first time. “Oh.” The suit had automatically clamped shut around the injury, preventing further blood loss. With the suit pumping Kwan full of drugs and nanomachines under Skippy’s control, he didn’t feel the pain and his body’s natural shock response was suppressed. Not that a Night Tiger would ever allow himself the weakness of experiencing shock. Kwan looked from his missing right arm to his left, where his rifle was still secured. He checked the rifle’s readout. “Forty two rounds left,” he said and tried to stand again.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Poole said with a worried glance back over her shoulder, in case the combots tried to advance. “Skippy, sitrep.”
“One combot is destroyed, the other is damaged; its mobility and targeting sensors are compromised. That was good shooting by you and Kwan. The two Thuranin are in the process of making the final connections to overload the power junction. You have to move now, and I mean right now.”
“How-” Poole started to say something, when Adams hit the button that fastened the ultra strong strap of her backpack.
“Kwan can carry Skippy,” Adams announced, shrugging off the pack.
“Poole,” Smythe called. “I see Kwan lost an arm and that you’re injured? Skippy just warned me the situation-” There was a sustained rattle of gunfire, “Your situation back there is critical. You need to stop those Thuranin. I sent two people back to you with combots but they won’t arrive in time.”
The Ranger hesitated only a moment, looking directly into Adams’ eyes, then nodded. “We’re handling it. Adams and I will take care of the Thuranin, Kwan will carry Skippy.”
“Kwan can’t carry-” Smythe started to object.
“I can walk, Major,” Kwan said, and struggled to his feet. Adams slung the pack over his shoulders and the strap automatically clanged shut around his chest. “I can do it.” Kwan’s voice was unsteady as his body adjusted to shock, blood loss and the intervening nanomachines.
“Lieutenant Poole, this is not a good ide-”
Poole cut Smythe off. “Sir, you are not here.”
“Understood,” Smythe said. “Make it happen.”
“Acknowledged. Poole out. Kwan, go back along the corridor and link up with the people Smyth is sending. Whatever happens, you get Skippy to the station core.”
Lieutenant Kwan never thought the most vital mission of his life would involve carrying a beer can. He saluted with his rifle and turned to jog unsteadily back down the corridor.
“I can’t take the ceiling this time,” Poole lifted her injured leg. “We go in, I’ll take point. Forget the sparkle grenades, they’ll degrade our sensors as much as that combot’s sensors at this point. Skippy, is there any reason we can’t use shock grenades on those Thuranin? Would that cause the explosion we’re trying to avoid?”
“Shock grenades will not be problem,” he advised. “Maximum violence is authorized. And recommended. I really urge you to get moving, now.”
Margaret Adams later reflected that if she had not been trained so well by the Marine Corps, or if she had taken time to think about it, she might not have gone around that corner with Poole. She did. The enemy combot fired wildly, scoring a vicious hit to Poole’s already injured right side. The impact knocked Poole sideways into Adams, making Adams bounce off the wall and saving her life. The combot’s final two rockets scorched through the spot where Adams had been a split second before. With Poole skidding on the floor and Adams falling, both women kept aim on the combot, and it was ripped apart by explosive-tipped rounds. Without exchanging a word and without hesitation, they scrambled to their feet, running and leaping over the smoking ruins of the two combots. Poole ripped a shock grenade off her belt and Adams did the same, tossing the grenades through an open doorway and following the grenades with massed rifle fire. Both of the grenades exploded at the same time, having been networked together for maximum effect.
Detonation of the grenades flung both women backwards, Poole smacking her helmet on the far wall, and Adams crashing into the Ranger. Stunned, Adams still had the presence of mind to keep her rifle pointed at the doorway and the trigger depressed. Dimly, she heard a voice calling to her. “Adams. Adams! Sarge Marge, stand down. Stand down,” Skippy said soothingly. “It’s Ok. It’s over. You got them. And you’re out of ammo.”
“Oof,” Adams staggered to her knees. Even before checking on Poole, she ejected the spent clip from her rifle and slapped another in place, checking the readout to ensure it reported the correct 160 rounds. “Lieutenant, are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Poole’s voice reflected great strain. “Help me up, Sergeant. I think my ankle is sprained, and the suit leg motor aren’t working properly.”
“I’m working on it,” Skippy said cheerily. “But I’m not optimistic. You’ll have to walk on your own for a while.”
“Got it.” Poole shook her head to clear the cobwebs. The shock grenades had knocked her brain offline for a moment. She glanced through the doorway. There were bloody Thuranin bits liberally splattered all over. None of them were moving, unless you counted chunks falling from the ceiling. “Sergeant, I’ll need to lean on you, this suit is too heavy to walk if the motors aren’t working. Sorry. Let’s get back to Kwan before any more trouble pops up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
No more trouble popped up, they caught up to Kwan just before the people that Smythe had sent arrived to meet him. Kwan was in a bad way, the nanomachines had not been able to stop him bleeding inside the suit, and he was woozy. The fact that he was still upright when they found him was a testament to the toughness of the Night Tiger special forces. Adams left Kwan and Poole with an Indian paratrooper, and she took the backpack containing Skippy from Kwan. An SAS lieutenant and a combot were ready to escort Adams to the station’s core. Before she painfully sat down to take the pressure off her ankle, Poole looked at the SAS man. “Get Sergeant Adams and Skippy to the station’s core. If you see anything moving along the way,” she almost slipped on spent shell casings that littered the floor. “Kill it.”
With a trigger-happy SAS trained killer and a heavy combot leading the way, Margaret Adams did not encounter any problems along the way to the station’s core. As soon as she went through the heavily shielded blast doors that separated the station’s core, Skippy exulted “I’m in! Their AI is toast, baby
! It was a jerk, too, I’m certainly not going to shed any tears for that one. Major Smythe, my congratulations to your team, they were exemplary in both their bravery and skill. Huh. I wonder what Colonel Joe has been doing while we had all the fun?”
What I had been doing, I told Skippy later, was sitting uselessly in the command chair. Sitting, worrying and driving the pilots crazy because apparently I had been continuously tapping my front teeth with a thumbnail, until Desai turned in her seat and asked me to stop it. It is possible that was not my only subconscious annoying habit.
The battle to take control of the relay station took less than eleven minutes, and the Dutchman had microjumped twelve lightminutes away, so the fight was over before the light of our first shot reached back to our position. Space combat is weird and frustrating. After Skippy declared the fight to be over and Smythe took a couple minutes to confirm, it took their victory signal twelve minutes to reach us. When Skippy had first talked about light ‘crawling’ along, I had not appreciated the truth of that statement. After we received the victory signal, including Skippy reporting three dead, two critically wounded and seven with less serious injuries, we still could not jump the Dutchman back into recover the assault team. The Thuranin had launched a pair of missiles at us before we jumped, then when it appeared the battle may be going against them, they had ripple fired all twelve remaining missiles and ejected six flight recorder drones. All fourteen missiles were out there, stealthed, flying blind but their smart brains were angrily seeking any sort of target. Skippy needed twenty minutes to locate and contact the missiles and drones, and use the missiles to destroy the drones and each other. Having missile warhead debris floating around was a bonus, Skippy explained, because it would later help us sell the cover story. When we were done with the station, we planned to blow it up; debris of Thuranin missile warheads would be convincing evidence of a space battle the station had lost.
So, I sat aboard the Dutchman, doing absolutely nothing useful to anyone, until we received the All Clear signal that was already twelve minutes out of date. During that time, one of the critically wounded soldiers died, despite Doctor Skippy’s best efforts. I was frantic to get the wounded to the Dutchman’s sickbay. The relay station had a medical facility that Skippy couldn’t use until he had time to reconfigure its equipment for human anatomy. Given the slow rate at which the comparatively clunky Thuranin equipment accepted Skippy’s instructions, it was faster to fly the wounded back to our ship. As soon as we jumped in, we detected that one of our dropships had launched to bring wounded soldiers to us. My job was to stay out of the way, keep my mouth shut and let my people do their jobs.
I hated every second of it. The next battle we engaged in, regardless of Chotek’s orders or the strenuous advice of Chang, Simms and Smythe, I was going with the SpecOps team. Lt Colonel Chang was a fine officer, as fully capable as I am of uselessly sitting in the command chair while other people fought.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Smythe sent a quick situation report to me, including the casualty list. The list was much shorter than we had feared. Still, I would have to write letters to the families of each soldier we lost. My letters would be reviewed and censored by UNEF Command when we got back to Earth; any casualty had to be described as a ‘training accident’.
“Was it worth the cost?” Chotek asked, standing right next to the command chair where I was sitting.
“Sir?”
“The people we lost,” he said, as if he needed to remind me. “Was the mission successful? Is Skippy able to get into the Thuranin computer?”
“Yes,” Skippy responded, sounding annoyed. “I am installing the submind to run the communications relay and fake messages from the former Thuranin crew here. This Thuranin computer equipment is absolute garbage, it will take hours to install and establish the submind. In the meantime, I am skimming through the databanks for any useful information about that surveyor ship that I destroyed for you.”
“You destroyed?” I protested. “I seem to remember you having a little help from monkeys. Like, thinking up the whole idea of-”
“Yes yes, let’s not quibble about the details,” Skippy mumbled quickly. “Ok, so you were somewhat more useful than expected on that mission, do you expect a freakin’ gold star from the teacher? Damn, you are way too sensitive. Anywho, here is what I have found so far, or, wait. Would you rather that I waste precious minutes in grudgingly telling you how marginally competent you sometimes are?”
“The data, Skippy! Give us the data!”
“I thought so. Here’s the deal; the Thuranin know their surveyor ship was destroyed. They know its three escort ships were also destroyed around the same time. Perhaps the most important detail is that they believe the Jeraptha destroyed those ships. They have no idea about our pirate ship, and there has been no speculation that humans were involved in any way.”
A cheer rang around the bridge and CIC. High fives were given, people hugged. I pumped my fist in the air, and gave Lt. Colonel Chang a big thumbs up through the glass that separated the bridge from the CIC. He returned the gesture with a huge grin. I was so happy that I even turned in my chair to shake Chotek’s hand, and he was grinning happily.
“Not so fast, monkeybrains,” Skippy warned. “There is one minor complication. We didn’t know it, but there was a ceasefire in effect between the Jeraptha and the Thuranin in that subsector at the time. The Thuranin have protested to the Jeraptha, and the Jeraptha have strongly denied they were involved. This could become a problem; the Jeraptha know they didn’t do it, so they are wondering who did.”
“Oh, shit,” I slumped in my chair.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it now, Joe,” Skippy said in a soothing tone. “For now, both sides will almost certainly assume the incident is due to the fog of war. The Thuranin do not believe the denials of the Jeraptha. So any future complication from this incident will come from the Jeraptha. And they will forget all about it eventually, as long as there are not a lot more unexplained incidents in this sector. The destruction of the surveyor task force caused the Thuranin to retaliate by attacking Jeraptha ships, and the ceasefire broke down entirely. It has only recently been reestablished. By the way, when the Thuranin violated the ceasefire by attacking the Jeraptha, they got their little green asses kicked. The Thuranin very much want the current ceasefire to hold, so if we have to destroy another of their ships, they might not make a big fuss about it. Although let’s avoid taking our rebuilt pirate ship into combat unless we have to, please?”
“Agreed,” I breathed a sigh of relief, which was immediately ruined.
“You did not know there was a ceasefire in effect at the time you destroyed the surveyor ship?” Chotek of course found something to nag about.
Damn it. Even in a moment of triumph, I had to defend myself. “No sir,” I said while trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “We did not have that information at the time. And there was no time for us to attempt to gather more information. Our priority was to intercept the surveyor ship, before it topped off its fuel tanks and set course for Earth.”
“I guess that is my bad,” Skippy said cheerily. “If I’d thought about it, I would have tried digging info like that out of the databanks of that tanker ship. Although I did fly by it super-fast; I barely had time to get the data on the tanker ship’s rendezvous with the surveyor.”
“Truthfully, sir,” I added, “if we had known about the ceasefire, that would not have changed our actions. Could not have changed our actions, we did not have the time or opportunity to consider other possibilities. As it was, we barely arrived on time at the coordinates before the surveyor task force ships did.”
“I have read your report, Colonel,” Chotek said in a mildly scolding tone. “The fact remains there was a significant risk factor that you were not aware of. If the Jeraptha decide to investigate further, and discover that humans were involved, then your destruction of the surveyor task force could have put humanity in greater dang
er. We can’t fly by the seat of our pants out here; the stakes are too high.”
“Yes, sir,” I responded as I could feel my cheeks growing red. Did the asshole UN bureaucrat think any of that was news to us?
“Hey!” Skippy shouted. “It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback when you have never done anything to-”
“Skippy!” I wanted to cut off a long and useless argument. “Mr. Chotek has a point; we did not have all the information available at the time. Sir,” I spun my command chair around to face Chotek, “we are never going to have all the information we wish out here. We have to make judgments based on inadequate data. And on this mission, those judgment calls will be yours, sir. You are the mission commander. Whatever you do, someone back on Earth will be second guessing your decisions.” My little speech was more for me than for him. Following the advice of Sergeant Adams, I was not going to let fear of criticism make me shy away from doing what I thought was right. From the CIC, Adams caught my eye and gave me a subtle nod of approval. “Even if the Jeraptha do find cause to investigate the destruction of the surveyor task force, they will find that difficult to do, since the incident occurred in Thuranin territory. It is unlikely the Thuranin will stand by while enemy ships spend months running detailed sensors scans. Skippy, is there any way that either the Jeraptha or Thuranin could find evidence connecting us to the surveyor task force?”
“No way, dude!” He chuckled happily. “You think I’m a moron? No way, not possible. The only possibility of ever connecting humans to that incident is if human DNA were somehow on a missile casing. And that did not happen, I scrubbed those missiles before launch for that very reason. Also, if you remember, Joe, those missiles all exploded and left only subatomic particles behind. The Jeraptha and Thuranin could scan that area until the end of time and not ever find a connection to us. Having said that, the Thuranin do know that one of their star carriers is out here flying around by itself and is now hostile to Thuranin forces. The Thuranin think our pirate ship has been captured by the Kristang; I know that because the Thuranin have warned the Kristang and angrily demanded their star carrier back. That caused major suspicions between Kristang clans; they are all worried that one clan has gained a major technological advantage by stealing a star carrier.”
Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3) Page 23
